The City of Cape Town has approved a Rail Business Plan for devolving the operation of the city’s Metrorail services from the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) to the municipality.
The city will now submit a memorandum to the National Department of Transport requesting that rail services be devolved.
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According to Mayco member for urban mobility Rob Quintas, devolution will only be possible with funding from the National Treasury, which he says must take the form of a multi-year funding agreement.
The city’s long-term mobility plan envisages devolution being completed by 2028, but Quintas says the timeline “will ultimately be determined by the national government” and is outside the city’s control.
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The plan also proposes the development of a rail link to Blue Downs, with the possibility of further expansion.
In 2023, the city threatened Prasa with an intergovernmental dispute after failed attempts to establish a working committee on rail devolution.
In October 2024, the city said the process had been delayed several times by the national government. A Service Level Plan between Prasa and the city was then signed in February 2025.
Calls for devolution follow many years of deteriorating passenger rail services, culminating in a near-total collapse in 2021.
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Earlier this year, Transport Minister Barbara Creecy said the recovery of the Central Line – Cape Town’s “most important rail corridor” – had cost about R1.3 billion.
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Quintas said devolving Metrorail would benefit “lower-income households who travel long distances from their homes, work, and school”.
© 2025 GroundUp. This article was first published here.
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